Pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline are currently contributed large amounts of money for research and development for disease prevention
We look for innovative ways to increase access to medicines. For the developing world this includes dedicated research, special prices, licensing generic manufacturers, and community investment. We also operate Patient Assistance Programs to help uninsured patients in the US. Here we outline just two elements of our programme. Much more detail is provided in our full CR Report. Research into neglected diseases R&D is critically important for reducing the impact of disease in developing countries. A few widespread and life-threatening diseases lack effective treatments, while for many others (such as malaria) existing treatments are becoming less effective due to drug resistance. In the past, many infectious tropical diseases have not been a priority for the pharmaceutical industry because widespread poverty means there is no viable commercial market for new treatments. Public private partnerships (PPPs) are now helping to overcome this obstacle – and GSK is playing a key role. One example is our malaria vaccine for children – currently undergoing clinical trials in Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Gabon and Ghana. This research is supported by a $21.4 million grant from the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. GSK has been working on a malaria vaccine for over two decades and the additional resource provided through PPPs is having a catalytic effect. If the results continue to be positive the vaccine could be submitted for regulatory approval as early as 2010. In 2006 we also identified a new compound for development that may be effective against drug-resistant strains of malaria. Critically, this potential medicine does not show the toxicity that affected a previous candidate and we expect to begin trials in late 2007. In TB research we are working with the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and have launched a joint drug discovery partnership with the GlobalAlliancefor TB Drug Development (TB Alliance). The TB Alliance is supporting 25 full-time scientists at our Tres Cantos drug discovery site in Spain which is dedicated to diseases of the developing world. GSK is contributing a matching number of staff and all remaining overhead costs. Around 1.5 million compounds have now been tested for anti-TB activity and we have four pre-clinical TB projects underway. No new treatments have been discovered for TB in the last 40 years, which emphasises the importance of these partnerships.
B. Link –
Patent protection is key to the perception that the US is willing to protect further patents and committed to free trade – the result is a lack of technological innovation
Shanker A. Singham, Counsel, Steel, Hector and Davis LLP, 2000
[“TRIPS and the Interface Between Competition and Patent Protection in the Pharmaceutical Industry,” Brooklyn Journal of International Law, 26 Brooklyn J. Int'l L. 363, Lexis] Rein
Surveys have found the strength of the intellectual property rights regime of a country to be of particular importance to firms making R&D decisions regarding investment in the manufacturing stage of development, and in licensing of technology to unrelated firms. **45** It follows that the stronger the intellectual property regime, the stronger the patent protection will be (and the greater the FDI will be). This is particularly true in the case of the pharmaceutical industry sensitive to patent protection. In an examination of the Indian pharmaceutical market, Lanjouw argues that there may be economic reasons why an intellectual property regime matters in decisions regarding the location of an R&D facility in a country. **46** This may have spillover effects of R&D into neighboring firms. Just as important, a country's level of intellectual property protection may be used as a signaling mechanism for investors indicating the general business climate in a particular country: Where the stronger the intellectual property regime, the more favorable the general business climate. The effect of trade barriers on technology transfers is linked to FDI when based on the level of intellectual property rights. Parente and Prescott argue that the extent of barriers to trade play a key role in per capita income across countries since trade may affect growth by lowering the barriers to technology adoption. **47** Therefore, as free trade increases, so too will the impact of FDI on increasing per capita income. These findings are supported by Gould and Gruben's work in which they determine the importance of patent protection is a key determinant of economic growth. Moreover, they note that there is a stronger effect from a robust patent system in open economies than in closed economies. **48** Augmenting this point is a recent study that suggests that weak patent protection is itself a barrier to trade. **49** Increased patent rights stimulate investors and businesses inside and outside of a country to undertake activity beneficial to the country. **50** Because patents protect innovation, even smaller developing countries can benefit from a strong patent regime since such a regime will help to establish a pro-invention culture in the domestic industry of such a country. **51** A study of developing countries on the higher end of the development spectrum, such as the Philippines, Argentina and Turkey, suggests that such countries must protect intellectual property in order to encourage the rapid development of longterm innovative abilities. **52** In the thirteen years since the publication of the study, the countries in the surveyed group that have seen the greatest technological innovation are the very ones that created strong patent systems; for example, Mexico and South Korea. **53** In contrast with a strong patent system, a weak patent system, or one that fails to protect patents at all, will have a chilling effect on local scientific and technological capabilities. Scientists and engineers may abandon their home countries in search of stronger intellectual property systems so as to pursue their innovations in more hospitable settings. There is no incentive to innovate in countries where innovators cannot protect their work product from copycats. Copycat companies keep these countries from developing a robust technology related sector in their country. One author notes that highly educated graduates in developing countries often do not have technologically sophisticated businesses, universities or other research institutes in which to continue innovative high technology work that one can more easily find in the developed world. **54** Establishing such institutions is costly. **55** Perhaps a quicker means to establishing such institutions is to attract high technology firms to a developing country. Since the only way that a high technology company will share its technology with a developing country is if a strong intellectual property (and particularly patent) system is in place, this will affect the business decision to transfer technology to the country. **56** Moreover, a weak patent system has a chilling effect on the return of technologically skilled nationals who have studied or worked abroad in the developed world. **57** Information from India suggests that despite the fact that about 2-3% of the world total of scientific papers originate in India, the number of scientists engaged in industrial research there is low and did not increase between 1977 and 1982 - a period when industrial research was expanding globally. **58**
C. Impacts –
1. Competitiveness is key to the economy
Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to the UN, 1995
["Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War," Washington Quarterly, Spring]
TheUnited Statesis unlikely to preserve its military and technological dominance if theU.S.economy declines seriously. In such an environment, the domestic economic and political base for global leadership would diminish and theUnited Stateswould probably incrementally withdraw from the world, become inward-looking, and abandon more and more of its external interests. As the United States weakened, others would try to fill the vacuum. To sustain and improve its economic strength, theUnited Statesmust maintain its technological lead in the economic realm. Its success will depend on the choices it makes. In the past, developments such as the agricultural and industrial revolutions produced fundamental changes positively affecting the relative position of those who were able to take advantage of them and negatively affecting those who did not. Some argue that the world may be at the beginning of another such transformation, which will shift the sources of wealth and the relative position of classes and nations. If the United States fails to recognize the change and adapt its institutions, its relative position will necessarily worsen. To remain the preponderant world power, U.S.economic strength must be enhanced by further improvements in productivity, thus increasing real per capita income; by strengthening education and training; and by generating and using superior science and technology. In the long run the economic future of the United States will also be affected by two other factors. One is the imbalance between government revenues and government expenditure. As a society the United States has to decide what part of the GNP it wishes the government to control and adjust expenditures and taxation accordingly. The second, which is even more important to U.S. economic well-being over the long run, may be the overall rate of investment. Although their government cannot endow Americans with a Japanese-style propensity to save, it can use tax policy to raise the savings rate. Another key factor affecting the global standing of the United States is its current social crisis: the high rate of violence in cities, the unsatisfactory state of race relations, and the breakdown of families. Although it faces no global ideological rival, and although movements such as Islamic fundamentalism and East Asian neo-Confucian authoritarianism are limited in their appeal, the social problems of theUnited Statesare limiting its attractiveness as a model. If the social crisis worsens, it is likely that, over the long term, a new organizing principle with greater universal appeal will emerge and be adopted by states with the power and the desire to challenge the erstwhile leader.
History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons uponJapan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacksTaiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalationto full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
3. Turns Case – Patent protection is critical to allow for the development of new drugs to save millions from future and present diseases, including HIV/AIDS
Shanker A. Singham, Counsel, Steel, Hector and Davis LLP, 2000
[“TRIPS and the Interface Between Competition and Patent Protection in the Pharmaceutical Industry,” Brooklyn Journal of International Law, 26 Brooklyn J. Int'l L. 363, Lexis] Rein
If firms are to find cures for new diseases or those that affect developing country populations, they must be incentivised to engage in the necessary research. Without this incentivisation, new drugs will not be developed. Without a strong and enforced patent system, it is unlikely that the developing world's health problems will be solved, nor will the new and complex diseases which afflict the world, such as HIV/AIDS, be treated. Indeed, the kind of patent regime that many activists crave is one which would freeze innovation, lead to no new drugs being developed, and the world's health problems continuing to visit human suffering and misery on millions of people. The misguided belief that innovation will always be with us and does not need to be incentivised could lead to needless tragedy at a time when new innovations and genetic discoveries hold such rich promise for humanity.
A. Uniqueness –
Pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline are currently contributed large amounts of money for research and development for disease prevention
CR Report, GlaxoSmithKline, 2006
[http://www.gsk.com/responsibility/cr-review-2006/access-to-medicines.htm] Rein
We look for innovative ways to increase access to medicines. For the developing world this includes dedicated research, special prices, licensing generic manufacturers, and community investment. We also operate Patient Assistance Programs to help uninsured patients in the US. Here we outline just two elements of our programme. Much more detail is provided in our full CR Report. Research into neglected diseases R&D is critically important for reducing the impact of disease in developing countries. A few widespread and life-threatening diseases lack effective treatments, while for many others (such as malaria) existing treatments are becoming less effective due to drug resistance. In the past, many infectious tropical diseases have not been a priority for the pharmaceutical industry because widespread poverty means there is no viable commercial market for new treatments. Public private partnerships (PPPs) are now helping to overcome this obstacle – and GSK is playing a key role. One example is our malaria vaccine for children – currently undergoing clinical trials in Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Gabon and Ghana. This research is supported by a $21.4 million grant from the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. GSK has been working on a malaria vaccine for over two decades and the additional resource provided through PPPs is having a catalytic effect. If the results continue to be positive the vaccine could be submitted for regulatory approval as early as 2010. In 2006 we also identified a new compound for development that may be effective against drug-resistant strains of malaria. Critically, this potential medicine does not show the toxicity that affected a previous candidate and we expect to begin trials in late 2007. In TB research we are working with the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and have launched a joint drug discovery partnership with the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance). The TB Alliance is supporting 25 full-time scientists at our Tres Cantos drug discovery site in Spain which is dedicated to diseases of the developing world. GSK is contributing a matching number of staff and all remaining overhead costs. Around 1.5 million compounds have now been tested for anti-TB activity and we have four pre-clinical TB projects underway. No new treatments have been discovered for TB in the last 40 years, which emphasises the importance of these partnerships.
B. Link –
Patent protection is key to the perception that the US is willing to protect further patents and committed to free trade – the result is a lack of technological innovation
Shanker A. Singham, Counsel, Steel, Hector and Davis LLP, 2000
[“TRIPS and the Interface Between Competition and Patent Protection in the Pharmaceutical Industry,” Brooklyn Journal of International Law, 26 Brooklyn J. Int'l L. 363, Lexis] Rein
Surveys have found the strength of the intellectual property rights regime of a country to be of particular importance to firms making R&D decisions regarding investment in the manufacturing stage of development, and in licensing of technology to unrelated firms. **45** It follows that the stronger the intellectual property regime, the stronger the patent protection will be (and the greater the FDI will be). This is particularly true in the case of the pharmaceutical industry sensitive to patent protection. In an examination of the Indian pharmaceutical market, Lanjouw argues that there may be economic reasons why an intellectual property regime matters in decisions regarding the location of an R&D facility in a country. **46** This may have spillover effects of R&D into neighboring firms. Just as important, a country's level of intellectual property protection may be used as a signaling mechanism for investors indicating the general business climate in a particular country: Where the stronger the intellectual property regime, the more favorable the general business climate. The effect of trade barriers on technology transfers is linked to FDI when based on the level of intellectual property rights. Parente and Prescott argue that the extent of barriers to trade play a key role in per capita income across countries since trade may affect growth by lowering the barriers to technology adoption. **47** Therefore, as free trade increases, so too will the impact of FDI on increasing per capita income. These findings are supported by Gould and Gruben's work in which they determine the importance of patent protection is a key determinant of economic growth. Moreover, they note that there is a stronger effect from a robust patent system in open economies than in closed economies. **48** Augmenting this point is a recent study that suggests that weak patent protection is itself a barrier to trade. **49** Increased patent rights stimulate investors and businesses inside and outside of a country to undertake activity beneficial to the country. **50** Because patents protect innovation, even smaller developing countries can benefit from a strong patent regime since such a regime will help to establish a pro-invention culture in the domestic industry of such a country. **51** A study of developing countries on the higher end of the development spectrum, such as the Philippines, Argentina and Turkey, suggests that such countries must protect intellectual property in order to encourage the rapid development of longterm innovative abilities. **52** In the thirteen years since the publication of the study, the countries in the surveyed group that have seen the greatest technological innovation are the very ones that created strong patent systems; for example, Mexico and South Korea. **53** In contrast with a strong patent system, a weak patent system, or one that fails to protect patents at all, will have a chilling effect on local scientific and technological capabilities. Scientists and engineers may abandon their home countries in search of stronger intellectual property systems so as to pursue their innovations in more hospitable settings. There is no incentive to innovate in countries where innovators cannot protect their work product from copycats. Copycat companies keep these countries from developing a robust technology related sector in their country. One author notes that highly educated graduates in developing countries often do not have technologically sophisticated businesses, universities or other research institutes in which to continue innovative high technology work that one can more easily find in the developed world. **54** Establishing such institutions is costly. **55** Perhaps a quicker means to establishing such institutions is to attract high technology firms to a developing country. Since the only way that a high technology company will share its technology with a developing country is if a strong intellectual property (and particularly patent) system is in place, this will affect the business decision to transfer technology to the country. **56** Moreover, a weak patent system has a chilling effect on the return of technologically skilled nationals who have studied or worked abroad in the developed world. **57** Information from India suggests that despite the fact that about 2-3% of the world total of scientific papers originate in India, the number of scientists engaged in industrial research there is low and did not increase between 1977 and 1982 - a period when industrial research was expanding globally. **58**
C. Impacts –
1. Competitiveness is key to the economy
Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to the UN, 1995
["Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War," Washington Quarterly, Spring]
The United States is unlikely to preserve its military and technological dominance if the U.S. economy declines seriously. In such an environment, the domestic economic and political base for global leadership would diminish and the United States would probably incrementally withdraw from the world, become inward-looking, and abandon more and more of its external interests. As the United States weakened, others would try to fill the vacuum. To sustain and improve its economic strength, the United States must maintain its technological lead in the economic realm. Its success will depend on the choices it makes. In the past, developments such as the agricultural and industrial revolutions produced fundamental changes positively affecting the relative position of those who were able to take advantage of them and negatively affecting those who did not. Some argue that the world may be at the beginning of another such transformation, which will shift the sources of wealth and the relative position of classes and nations. If the United States fails to recognize the change and adapt its institutions, its relative position will necessarily worsen. To remain the preponderant world power, U.S. economic strength must be enhanced by further improvements in productivity, thus increasing real per capita income; by strengthening education and training; and by generating and using superior science and technology. In the long run the economic future of the United States will also be affected by two other factors. One is the imbalance between government revenues and government expenditure. As a society the United States has to decide what part of the GNP it wishes the government to control and adjust expenditures and taxation accordingly. The second, which is even more important to U.S. economic well-being over the long run, may be the overall rate of investment. Although their government cannot endow Americans with a Japanese-style propensity to save, it can use tax policy to raise the savings rate. Another key factor affecting the global standing of the United States is its current social crisis: the high rate of violence in cities, the unsatisfactory state of race relations, and the breakdown of families. Although it faces no global ideological rival, and although movements such as Islamic fundamentalism and East Asian neo-Confucian authoritarianism are limited in their appeal, the social problems of the United States are limiting its attractiveness as a model. If the social crisis worsens, it is likely that, over the long term, a new organizing principle with greater universal appeal will emerge and be adopted by states with the power and the desire to challenge the erstwhile leader.
2. Economic collapse causes extinction
T.T. Bearden, Director of the Association of Distinguished American Scientists, 2000
[http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-Bearden.htm]
History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
3. Turns Case – Patent protection is critical to allow for the development of new drugs to save millions from future and present diseases, including HIV/AIDS
Shanker A. Singham, Counsel, Steel, Hector and Davis LLP, 2000
[“TRIPS and the Interface Between Competition and Patent Protection in the Pharmaceutical Industry,” Brooklyn Journal of International Law, 26 Brooklyn J. Int'l L. 363, Lexis] Rein
If firms are to find cures for new diseases or those that affect developing country populations, they must be incentivised to engage in the necessary research. Without this incentivisation, new drugs will not be developed. Without a strong and enforced patent system, it is unlikely that the developing world's health problems will be solved, nor will the new and complex diseases which afflict the world, such as HIV/AIDS, be treated. Indeed, the kind of patent regime that many activists crave is one which would freeze innovation, lead to no new drugs being developed, and the world's health problems continuing to visit human suffering and misery on millions of people. The misguided belief that innovation will always be with us and does not need to be incentivised could lead to needless tragedy at a time when new innovations and genetic discoveries hold such rich promise for humanity.